Crittenden County Officials Prepare For Voting

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(Marion, AR) According to Crittenden County Clerk Ruth Trent, there have been changes made to the election process when it comes to absentee votes.

The change came after 9 people from Crittenden County were charged last month with election fraud.

Of those, State Representative Hudson Hallum, his father, a West Memphis City Councilman and West Memphis Police officer were accused of destroying absentee ballots cast for Hallum’s opponent as well as bribing voters with cheap vodka and chicken dinners.

“We’re having them to sign the back of the application to show who brought those in, so that we can kind of trace that back in case there is some kind of need to know [who turned in the ballots],” said Trent about the new process for turning in absentee ballots.

“We have, in the past, gotten envelopes like this that will have several applications in them. This envelope will be numbered and every application that’s in here will correspond to that number,” explained Trent.

Trent said there have not been as many absentee ballots turned in so far this election, but she wants voters to have confidence in their election process.

“We are like everybody else. We want a good election, we don’t want any bad press,” added Trent.